Max and God

I HATE COMPUTERS

The first paragraph posted on its own. I don't want to type it again so here is the rest.

Max, not a candidate for sainthood, is a 2 year old, 11 pound, Miniature Pinscher, or Min Pin as they are called. Max has 3 legs, but it doesn't seem to hinder him in any way, in fact it enables him to cuddle up in smaller places than a 4th leg would allow. He uses this to his advantage. We got him a year ago from a rescue shelter. They found him by a community pool with no tag. His leg was already gone and the scar was so well-healed that I believe it was amputated at a very young age due to a birth defect or injury. Max loves to play, which enables Pepper, who is twice Max's size, to practice her tolerance. At home Max loves to dig and run, which goes together well when he digs out of our yard to go exploring. Even when I have lined our fence with rocks, big rocks, that Max, I assume by calling on evil power, can move. He digs by laying down on the side with the missing leg and then put his one front leg into hyper-drive
until the desired hole appears. When he was first with us he would take any opportunity to get out the front door, even hiding under the table till no one was paying attention, and then he was gone. I think that may be why he was found abandoned. Maybe the owner just got tired of chasing him. Max will run around the neighborhood, not to anyplace in particular, because any adventure will do. He has even run into a neighbors house whose door was open because she was taking groceries in. He found their dog's food and invited himself to dinner. Obviously to this point he has always come back on his own or because he got tired and we caught him.
Pepper shames easily. Not Max. So when the adventure is over he looks at you as if to say, "let me know when you're ready to go again." Pepper knows that is wrong so she shames for him.
Well, in case you don't know we are outside of Taos in Jerry and Carol Woods' cabin. When we take walks with the dog, Max is on a leash, but Pepper doesn't need one. If she gets to far away all we have to do is call her and she will come right back. On the first walk two horses came up to the fence to check us out. I let them smell my hand and then petted them. I held up Max and they touched noses. Pepper stood on her back legs and stretched until she touched noses. When we got back to the cabin's driveway, feeling mercy, I let Max off the leash thinking he would follow Pepper up to the cabin. No. He took off down the road to see the horses. I'm yelling and chasing and he is ignoring me. He gets to them and starts visiting, allowing me to catch up. Then he is off again, but at least it is in the direction of the cabin. A combination of him getting tired, too many interesting smells to investigate and my determination not to let this runt beat me, I finally caught him. On the way back I could just sense that he was proud of himself.
On three separate occasions, Kathryn, of kinder disposition, took both dogs for a walk and each time Max convinced her it would be okay to take the leash off because he wouldn't run this time. the first time, about a 1/4 mile from the cabin Max took off across a field, probably looking for his horses. Kathryn realized he was gettin too far away and began the chase. She had to go through two barb-wired fences and knee-high grass before she approached a little creek that seperated the field from the mountain. She prayed. Max decided not to swim and started running again, but not back toward Kathryn. Well, God, having mercy on Kathryn, had Max get tired, and when she was close, and with a sweet voice, made Max role over and plead temporary insanity. The second time he must have forgotten about the horses because he went the other direction through the pine trees and aspen that seperate each cabin by thirty yards or more. Kathryn had to blaze a trail through the treesto try to stay close. Not to worry, Max who is adorable and quite charming when you meet him, found some new friends down the way and was visiting when Kathyrn came up. The third time Kathryn was just trying tget both dogs to lighten their loads before we put them in their kennels so we could go to town. This time Max pulled the collar over his head by backing up. She wasn't to far away and got the dogs moving in the right direction until Max went down a prairie dog hole. I started over to help, but I could see that he wasn't guite ready to go back. I called Pepper and started to run to the cabin with her zooming ahead. Not to be outdone, Max came running after us and - God is good - they both run up the steps to the cabin.
Now Pepper is a little like God. She just wants to be near us andlove us. Max is more like a lot of us and doesn't know what to do with his freedom. God has givien us freedom, it is part of Imago Dei. God is free to be fully God. She uses her freedomto create, restore and bless us and all creation. He gave us free will so that we could choose to love Her, or not. St. John the Evangelistsays the truth will set us free (4:8). Jesus is the truth (Jn 14:6) and Paul says for the purpose of freedom, Jesus set us free.(Gal 5:1). Twelve verses later Paul also says not to use our freedom to sin, to sererate ourselves form God..
Max has not yet received the Gospel. He has received plenty of grace and forgiveness. He senses freedom as doing whatever he wants (and I mean whatever he wants) whenever he wants. When he wants to he can pour on the charm, just ask anyone who knows him. But when he doesn't want to do something, he braces himslef in that three-point stance( the Cowboys oughta take some lessons) and flips his head the other way as if to say, "What, did I hear something? Where did it come from?" And yet like those of us who beleive in God, but haven't completely given ourselves to Him, Max keeps turning around when he is running to see if we are still there. Sometimes he listens, responds, obeys or gives up, and sometimes he doesn't. Then Max is like a cat or a teenager, or if we are honest, like most of us.
God is always seeking to be with us and for us to want and know His presence. But if we keep running away, misusing our freedom, giveing part of ourselves, part of the time, we will not know the closeness, the oneness God offers us.
I CAN'T make Max do what I want him to do.
God WON'T make us do what we don't want to do..
But I won't give up on Max, and God won't give up on us.

All (wo)men are created equal inthe eyes of God, yet all of us are unique individuals with our own skills, personalities, likes and dislikes and so on. This same truth applies to dogs. St. Pepper, of whom I wrote yesterday, is now 9, but still devoted to Kathyrn, and sometimes me. She is attentive to us,obedient, smart, playful(at times), tolerante of other dogs(when necessary) and lives to please us and love us.

Pepper and God

The following is something I wrote 2 years and some of you read it in the Clarion, but it is a relevant to what I will post tomorrow. We are back at the Woods' cabin.

I am writing this from the mountains a little norht and west of Taos at the cabin of Jerry and Carol Woods(8:00 o'clockers). The weather has been great and it has rained a little but we are just trying to relax.

Most of this is about Pepper and som ofit is about God. Pepper is a 7 year old mix between a Jack Russell Terrier and a German Shorthair Pointer. She is extremely smart and energetic and is attached to Kathryn. She likes me to when I have food and Kathryn is not around. She likes to travel in the car and is very well behaved while riding, but she has never been in the car for more than an hour at a time. Taos is a 12-13 hour trip, but we broke it up into 2 days. Pepper was a littl hyper. Now, up here, someone was always around for the first couple of days. On monday the ladies went to town and Jerry and I played golf. We locked Pepper andMaggie, a cute 10 yearold long-haired dachsund, in the cabin. When Jerry and I got back from golf Pepper greeted us in the driveway and was so excited that she was jumping up and down. We wondered if the girls were home, or if the door hadn't been locked and it blew open.

When we unlocked the door we realized that neither of those guesses was right. Pepper had ripped the screen on a low window and jumped 3 feet to the ground. On Tuesday no body was home again, but we had locked the door, closed the window moved a bench that was in front of the window. When Jerry and I got back Pepper was in the driveway waiting for us and she was so excited that she jumped up and down. We couldn't wait to see what magic she performed this time. We had not closed the window over the kitchen sink. She had jumped on the counter, bent the aluminum frame on the screen, and jumped down 6 feet to the groud. It was kinda funny and kinda not.

A couple of days later I was in the mountains by myself and trying to decide what to write for the Clarion. I realized Pepper just wanted to be with us. She didin't know where we were, but she knew we weren't there. She wasn't going to let anything stop her from being with the ones she loved. That is about Pepper. Now, what about God. Well, actually it is about us. Do we want to be with God as much as Pepper wants to be with us? When we find ourselves seperated from God do we try to remove the barriers that seperate us? When we find ourselves in the presence of God do we get so excited that we start jumping up and down? God doesn't lock us in to protect us. God sets us free and asks us to stay near. God even promises that if we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us.(James 4:8) All Pepper wants to do is to share her love. I think that is what God wants to do too.

Poems

Here are two poems I thought up while walking in the woods and by the grace of God was able to remember till I could write them down. They are poems acccording to modern standards in that they don't rhyme and they don't have a rythym, or what ever it is called.

Walkingin the woods
darker than a Texas boy could imagine
thinking less deeply than I would like
I came upon a rabbit
being still
not to be noticed
we stared at each other
for five seconds or an hour
He got bored and one-hopped
into thick brush and thin air
I thanked him for his time
and walked on
grateful


I miss my family, friends and dogs
all a blessing
I think it is a tie
I'm the winner

Blessed or Cursed

Julian of Norwich says, "God rejoices in us."
Isaiah 24:5-6 says, 'The earth is defiled by its people...therefore a curse consumes the earth."
Forgive me Lord, but Isaiah seems to have a stronger case and it appears that humanity is the curse. We kill and destroy, we abuse and misuse, we build monuments to ourselves and create slums for others, we consume the good and lovely, and create the evil and ugly, we take what is given and deny it to others, and yet we smile and experience joy, we love and are loved, we recognize beauty, we have hope. How is that so?
Because Julian is right! God rejoices in us. He knows what we are capable of. She knows Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, the Beatles, Elvis, Pink Floyd, U2, Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan. God knows Monet, Renoir, Da Vince, Russell, Walt Disneyland Charles Schultz. He knows Moses, David, Siddhartha, Peter, Paul, Mohamed, Anselm, Tillich, King, and Graham. God knows Thorpe, Owens, Ruth, West, Brown, Aaron, the Admiral and Emmitt. When she sees us using our gifts, she smiles. God sees Gates and Buffett and Turner give billions to help others. He sees a widow give two small coins and a pensioner tithe. She knows what we were created for and what we are capable of and she has hope.